The practice of symbolizing Jesus as a sacrificial animal (lamb) or associating him with other Jewish Temple elements is evident in our earliest manuscript evidence from Christianity (the authentic Pauline epistles, mostly written in the 50’s CE). Just as Christology and eschatology evolve over the centuries to address theological or dogmatic problems, this symbolism similarly evolves as Christian writers innovate to inject renewed interest and, more recently, to get subscribers, views, shares, likes, and clicks - the better to spread the good news with. Here we examine one such modern symbological narrative to study how these innovations originate.
Here we have the version of this narrative that is the focus of our study today. A friend shared it on social media with the imperative, “Because I care…Ponder on this my dears”:
No matter how many times I read this, I just cannot do it without getting chills all over me! 😲 I bet you didn’t know the following about the manger that Jesus was laid in. Of course mangers are animal feeding troughs but in ancient Israel they were made of stone - not what you would see in a modern day nativity scene1. Not comfortable, but great for protection. That’s why those who were experts in this matter, the priests, would put their newborn lambs in them for protection. But not just any lamb, the unblemished perfect lambs that were used in the sacrifice for sins. And Bethlehem, where Jesus was born was FAMOUS for their UNBLEMISHED LAMBS used for the sacrifice. These lambs had to be perfect so they would wrap them tightly in cloth and lie them in the manger to keep them safe. This is exactly why the only time mangers are mentioned in Jesus’ birth story it is being told to shepherds. In Luke 2 it says “This will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.” The shepherds would have understood this powerful parallel! THEY KNEW what the cloth and the manger meant! This baby would be THE PERFECT LAMB OF GOD! The Messiah who would sacrifice His life for the sins of the whole world. He wasn’t just a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger, He was GOD: perfect, sinless and Holy, humbling Himself to become the perfect sacrifice to reconcile us back to Himself!! THAT my friend, that Perfect Lamb, is WHY we celebrate Christmas!!
I pondered it for a few minutes, then left it alone. I went back and pondered it a little more, then studied it for an hour or so. After pondering the result of that hour long study, and particularly because of the qualifying clause of the imperative to ponder (“Because I care”) – I decided to study it rigorously and to formally document that study.
I’m writing this very much because I share that sentiment of caring. I care about the world we live in, about educating ourselves to discover the nature of the universe, about how we author the rules of civil society, and fundamental to all of these concerns, I care about constructing our world views from reasoning that is logically valid and premises that are true.
The first time I read the narrative my initial impression was that it was fabricated (like the stories in chain emails where my friend found this letter in a Vietnam Vet’s closet after he died that comments poignantly on a phenomenon strongly resembling a recent political event). This initial impression stemmed from the use of two rhetorical devices employed in the first two sentences that are common in fabricated stories crafted to attract attention and promote rapid transmission:
The first sentence is an assertion that the content is so compelling it causes a physical reaction to which one is never inured regardless of the total number of exposures – this is an accurate description of the physiological response to an addictive substance to which humans do not develop a tolerance.2 The intent of this sentence is to assure the reader that something unimaginably powerful must lie waiting in the following paragraph – what could it possibly be? we are meant to ask ourselves.
The second sentence is a confident assertion that that the reader has never heard the content to follow, through the specific phrase “I bet you didn’t know…” – this is a rhetorical device to engage audiences by accusing them of ignorance – the most common and immediate reaction to such assertions is a defensive desire to demonstrate the accuser to be incorrect – how can we ascertain that the author who asserts we don’t know is wrong? by reading what follows to see if we have in fact heard of it of course – which is the desired effect of the accusation.
No human just sharing information they discovered writes this way – these are hallmarks of content that was engineered to propagate on social media. Such hallmarks, in my experience, are usually followed by marketing material, fiction, or fraud. Alone however, these devices don’t provide any data regarding the value or nature of whatever follows – but they do make me suspicious. The second time I pondered, I pondered with an elevated level of critical thought.
Evaluating content critically is difficult. It requires focus, energy, and an active application of all of our knowledge and faculties to examine claims and arguments on their own merits. It takes time, work, and care. I hypothesize that when we consume media, particularly on social media, we are frequently not thinking critically. That hypothesis is supported by the findings of researchers. Munusamy et al. (2024) conduct a meta analysis of 23 studies examining disinformation propagation on social media and assert “There is a lower likelihood that social media users will research the content they read or post.” I think this may simply be because we are busy and tired, and when scrolling memes and posts, we’re mostly there for the low effort dopamine reward (see (Firth et al. 2019), (Maza et al. 2023)). If consuming social media non-critically is a typical behavior, this may be one reason why Butler (2024) reports data indicating social media as a common vector for misinformation propagation and highlights the importance of critically consuming information on such platforms. Munusamy et al. (2024) similarly concludes that because social media users are less likely to research content they encounter, “Any unconfirmed content can therefore be swiftly shared and distributed over social media platforms”. This phenomenon is a serious societal problem.
The subsections below document my critical examination of the text of this content. Several components are problematic or seem implausible to me. These elements motivated a more rigorous study.
The narrative seems3 to be correct that water or feeding troughs in 1st century Palestine were commonly made from limestone, which apparently means these troughs are
Not comfortable, but great for protection.
Are they really? The suggestion that a stone trough offers protection to a lamb sitting on top of it, bound tightly in cloth, doesn’t seem plausible.
How does the stone trough provide protection? protection from what?
Recalling the specific reason the lambs needed protection in the narrative, it was because these were:
…not just any lamb, the unblemished perfect lambs that were used in the sacrifice for sins…These lambs had to be perfect so they would wrap them tightly in cloth and lie them in the manger to keep them safe.
Safe from what? What are these blemishes that disqualify the animal for ritual slaughter?
This language certainly refers to the requirements in the Pentateuch that the animals used in most sacrifices be “unblemished”. But what does “unblemished” actually mean in the context of 1st Century BCE temple sacrifice in Judaism?
The authors of the Hebrew Bible don’t provide too much detail but relevant verses with specific sections highlighted are below:
Exodus 12:5-13 (NRSVUE)
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10 You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. 11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. 12 I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods4 of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
Leviticus 22:21-25 (NRSVUE)
21 When anyone offers a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, in fulfillment of a vow or as a freewill offering, from the herd or from the flock, to be acceptable it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it. 22 Anything blind or injured or maimed or having a discharge or an itch or scabs—these you shall not offer to the Lord or put any of them on the altar as offerings by fire to the Lord. 23 An ox or a lamb that is deformed or stunted you may present for a freewill offering, but it will not be accepted for a vow. 24 Any animal that has its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut, you shall not offer to the Lord; such you shall not do within your land, 25 nor shall you accept any such animals from a foreigner to offer as food5 to your God; since they are mutilated, with a blemish in them, they shall not be accepted on your behalf.
Deuteronomy 17:1 (NRSVUE)
You must not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has a defect, anything seriously wrong, for that is abhorrent to the Lord your God.
The passage in Leviticus provides the most detail. Of all of these blemishes, only the injury/maiming variety could possibly be prevented by any kind of physical precautions – the “itch or scabs” requirement refers to skin diseases. Commentary on the Hebrew from the Jewish Virtual Library indicates “injured or maimed” (Hebrew שָׁבַר [shah-VAHR]: break shatter or destroy, or חָר֣וּץ [harus]: maimed or broken) means “broken or cracked limbs that cause the animal to be lame”6.
Different translations similarly indicate this meaning. The New American Standard Bible proposes:
Those that are blind, fractured, maimed, or have a wart, a festering rash, or scabs, you shall not offer to the LORD
as the English for Leviticus 22:22. Other translations use “broken or maimed” (KJV), “disabled or mutilated” (ESV), “crippled or injured” (CSB). Given all of the above I think it’s reasonable to interpret “injury” as something serious – a significant sprain or fracture that makes the animal lame in some way. The Mishnah is a later source (we will revisit the Mishnah below) and it expounds on the definition of blemishes but doesn’t mention physical injury at all (see the Mishnah text on blemishes here).
Based on the definition of “blemish” in the context of animals slated for ritual slaughter, I don’t think swaddling them in a manger would provide any protective benefit from such defects.
An image search reveals many pictures of these troughs, and suggests heights from the ground between 12 - 24 inches and basins maybe 4-8 inches deep, all open from the top. Unless the 1st Century CE shepherds needed to protect the lambs from vertically oriented Improvised Explosive Devices7, I’m not sure how they offer protection against becoming fractured or maimed. Common threats to lambs capable of inflicting physical harm would include local predators (canines, hyenas, birds etc.)……and I can’t really think of anything else – a lamb wouldn’t be physically damaged from stumbling and falling – maybe some accidents could occur where lambs would be trampled by larger animals – but for the most common threats that come to mind - I don’t see how immobilizing a lamb in a stone trough provides a protective benefit. Other options would be better: an enclosed room or pen for instance.
The narrative suggest that priests are the “experts in this matter” and though it’s not precisely clear which matter that is, the following sentences suggest the priests are the ones raising the lambs. This seems odd to me. Before studying this narrative I had a rudimentary knowledge of the priestly order in pre-Christian Judaism, but have never heard any suggestion that the Levite priests raised their own special flocks specifically for ritual slaughter. I wonder where this information came from. There are no passages in the Bible suggesting that the priestly order functioned as shepherds that I was able to find.
This sentence suggests invention to me. Would there really be a place that produced especially good lambs for sacrificing? so much so that everyone would have known and it would be FAMOUS?
When there was no mass communication? When most people in 1st Century CE Palestine were illiterate8 and would have to hear it word-of-mouth? By the first century CE sacrifices and worship were well centralized at the Temple in Jerusalem9 – so most animals for sacrifice would have come from around Jerusalem anyway (the animals being sold in the temple when Jesus disrupts the sellers were animals being sold as sacrifices to Jews who came to offer sacrifices; the money changers were converting currency to pay the temple tax – see (Seeley 1993), (McGrath n.d.))
This doesn’t seem likely to me.
The concerns expressed above motivated a rigorous study seeking to evaluate the origin and veracity of the narrative. In this section I summarize the results of Biblical scholar Wave Nunnally who has written a detailed analysis tracing the origins of this narrative – apparently identified as the “New Birth Narrative” (NBN). Nunnally is Professor Emeritus of Early Judaism and Christian Origins at Evangel University, Springfield, MO.10
This section further includes tangential studies on topics motivated by the examination of this narrative.
As with most every topic of inquiry a normal human (i.e. anyone who isn’t an expert on the leading edge of their field) may explore – the veracity of this particular narrative has already been well examined by others who are more qualified and knowledgeable than myself. The most well supported discussions I found are from Chad Bird11 writing at 1517.org (Bird 2021) and Dr. Wave Nunnally writing on his own website (Nunally 2023).
I encourage anyone reading this to read both of those discussions in full, but I will summarize the results of Nunally’s analysis here along with my own thoughts.
Nunnally traces the most recent incarnations of the NBN – the narrative I’m examining at the beginning of this document – to a 2012 book titled Jesus: a Theography by Frank Viola and Dr. Leonard Sweet12 . The fundamental premises in this 2012 book almost certainly originate in an 1883 work by Alfred Edersheim titled The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Prior to 1883 the notion that priestly shepherds raised lambs for sacrifice in Bethlehem did not exist in human thought.13
Edersheim (1883) writes
That the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, was a settled conviction14. Equally so was the belief, that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, “the tower of the flock”.15 This Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheep-ground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to town, on the road to Jerusalem. A passage in the Mishnah leads to the conclusion that the flocks which pastured there, were destined for Temple-sacrifices, and accordingly, that the shepherds, who watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds… [emphasis mine, Edersheim argues here that raising flocks was banned in this area, so if flocks were being raised, they must be special flocks raised by priests – See Nunnally’s detailed review of the Mishnah and other sources Edersheim points to for reasons why this is not the case – Edersheim chooses a particular passage but ignores several others that clarify shepherding was allowed outside urban centers]… Thus, Jewish tradition in some dim manner apprehended the first revelation of the Messiah from that Migdal Eder, where shepherds watched the Temple-flocks all the year round. Of the deep symbolic significance of such a coincidence, it is needless to speak.
So what is the Mishnah?
It is rabbinic literature that dates to the 2nd Century CE, two-hundred years after the estimated date of Jesus’ birth. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman’s in 70 CE and temple sacrifices no longer occurred, so as Dr. Dan McClellan16 notes in his analysis of the this same NBN (https://youtu.be/U00gZq7s2VA?t=31), “…nobody who had anything to do with the Mishnah had ever seen a temple sacrifice or knew the circumstances regarding where the temple got their sacrifices from around the end of the 1st Century BCE and the beginning of the 1st Century CE so again, there are no data that support this claim.”
But let’s see for ourselves – Edersheim’s actual text (URL is linked in the reference at the bottom of this document) includes a footnote indicating this Mishnah passage is Shekalim 7:4, so what does it actually say? We can read it here
If an animal that is fit for the altar was found straying, from Jerusalem and as far as Migdal Eder, and similarly if it was found within that distance from Jerusalem in any other direction, it is presumed that the animal came from Jerusalem. Most of the animals in Jerusalem were designated for offerings, and presumably this one was as well. Males are presumed to be burnt-offerings, as only males are brought as burnt-offerings. Females are presumed to be peace-offerings, as it is permitted to bring a female peace-offering. Rabbi Yehuda says: An animal that is fit for the Paschal offering, i.e., a one-year-old male lamb or kid, is presumed to be a Paschal offering, provided that it was found within thirty days before the Festival of Passover. – Mishnah, Shekalim 7:4
Two immediate observations emerge:
Shekalim 7:4 doesn’t say anything about flocks being raised or managed in Bethlehem, or in Migdal Eder. This text clearly asserts that if the animals are found there or anywhere in any direction as far as Migdal Eder, that it’s reasonable to assume they came from Jerusalem. The sense of the word for found is that the animal was previously lost – unattended, unclaimed. The only reason Migdal Eder seems to be mentioned is as a landmark for distance from Jerusalem (about six miles).
Shekalim 7:4 doesn’t say anything at all about shepherds. This entire passage merely states that any unattended animals within about six miles of Jerusalem in any direction are assumed to have come from Jerusalem, and that the ones from Jerusalem were probably meant to be sacrifices, so this one probably was too – so if you run across one you can pluck it up and offer it.
There is no logical pathway between Shekalim 7:4 and the conclusion that special shepherds watched over flocks of lamb and goat in Migdal Eder that were specifically raised for sacrifice. Edersheim just imagined this to be the case and declared that it was supported by the Mishnah which isn’t a valid information source for early 1st Century CE practices anyway.
The entire premise of this narrative was invented in 1883. No data from the ancient world support this notion and Edersheim’s 1883 work is the first record of it.
But Edershiem’s proposition doesn’t quite provide all the details of the narrative we’re examining here. There was no mention of lambs being swaddled and placed in mangers. So where does that come from? From the 2012 book Jesus: a Theography. I don’t have access to their text but Nunally (2023) reproduces relevant sections:
But before they were slaughtered, each lamb was required to be a pet in the family for at least four days. So the day after the final Sabbath before Passover, shepherds from the Bethlehem hills drove thousands of lambs into Jerusalem, where they were taken in by Jewish families for at least two days and treated as members of the family. Before sacrificing the lamb, the Jewish priest would ask, “Do you love this lamb?” If the family didn’t love the lamb, there would be no sacrifice (Sweet/Viola, p. 66).
Really? This procedure is not extant in the Bible or even the Mishnah – so where did Sweet and Viola get it?
Bethlehem’s priestly shepherds had to learn and follow special techniques and rituals during the lambing season. Bethlehem lambs born for slaughter were special lambs. To prevent harm and self-injury from thrashing about after birth on their spindly legs, newborn lambs were wrapped in swaddling cloths. Then they were placed in a manger or feeding trough, where they could calm down out of harm’s way (Sweet/Viola, p. 67).
Harm and self injury? Are there any data suggesting new born lambs injure themselves from thrashing around immediately upon birth? A modern study (Holmøy et al. 2017) of 270 lamb deaths that occurred within 5 days of birth found trauma to be the causative agent in 20% of cases; of these the most frequent cause of trauma was difficult birthing that required human assistance – 60% of all trauma deaths. The authors report that “traumatic injuries to the lamb may occur during birth, particularly in cases of fetopelvic disproportion. Lambs confined indoors may be trapped in pen hurdles, and small or inappropriately shaped lambing pens may increase the risk of injuries inflicted by ewes.” They list no other causes for lamb trauma and while this paper was limited to trauma that resulted in death, the notion that a new born lamb would thrash around and fracture a limb or incur some other serious injury that qualifies as a “blemish” doesn’t seem plausible. Simcock (2019) indicates that immediate suckling is imperative to survival because lambs require “50mls [of colostrum (ewe’s milk)] per kg of body weight [typical birth weights are 3-6 kg] in the first two hours after birth.” This doesn’t seem possible if the lamb is tightly wrapped in cloth and sequestered in a stone trough. I asked a representative of Jenkins Farms (a small farm in Georgia) about pathways for baby goat injuries and preventive measures17. The response indicated they: are susceptible to hypothermia (if they get wet and cold they die); may get trapped in equipment or other places and die; may swallow hay string and die, eat a lot of milk and sit out in the sun and die; that sprains and strains typically heal on their own, but sometimes they have to amputate legs (no indication of what causes these strains and sprains). The response to preventative measures was that they provide the animals with a sheltered place and let the mothers do the work.
Did Sweet and Viola just make this up? I think so. Nunally (2023) points out that they never cite any sources to support the claims in their 2012 book and he exhaustively examines specific claims therein, firmly concluding
- The assertion by Edersheim (and a plethora of others who follow him) on the basis of BT Bava Kama 80a18, that the sheep being kept by the shepherds of Bethlehem/Migdal Eder had to have been a special herd destined for the temple has to be rejected. The evidence introduced above demands it.The popularity of the NBN, the persuasiveness of the presentation of its advocates, the warm feeling experienced by those who embrace it, and the sense of greater importance that comes with having insider knowledge—NONE of these are worth the abandonment of our belief in absolute truth based on evidence.
- These and all the other incredibly detailed additions to the story of Jesus’ birth that are floating around today would be great if they were true, but they are simply the products of the fertile imaginations of modern-day midrashists. Our response to all who would abridge, edit, or add to the Word of God as written, or overthrow hundreds of years of interpretation must be “Show us your evidence and then we will evaluate it for ourselves!” If nothing more than conjecture, ramblings from unaccountable authors on non-peer-reviewed websites, and a titillating feel-good story are all they have to offer, they are rightly to be ignored.
- There were no priestly shepherds, no special lambs, and no special techniques that anyone had to learn to protect them. If there was evidence for this in ancient literature, this would have been produced by those who make such claims.
- To be clear, there is never a place ANYWHERE in ancient Jewish literature of ANY kind, whether in the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the intertestamental Apocrypha, the intertestamental Pseudepigrapha, Philo of Alexandria, Josephus Flavius, or ANYWHERE in the voluminous Rabbinic Literature that suggests that any lambs anywhere were ever swaddled. Again, this is why no source is ever cited by promoters of the NBN when making this point. Further, both Palestinian and Jewish shepherds in Israel will tell you that this is madness—within hours, a newborn lamb that was swaddled and laid in a manger would be dead. While teaching in Israel, I spoke to shepherds in the area of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. When asked if they were aware of an instance in which it would be beneficial to swaddle newborn lambs, without exception, their response was, “What? They’d starve in two hours!” The story as being told today is not only never documented by reference to ancient literature; it is also patently absurd on the practical level, life experience, and common sense.
That’s about just enough of that.
Encountering this meme/narrative/phenomenon where modern Christians invent stories – mostly likely to inject interesting components that engage audiences and keep the stories fresh – made me wonder how frequently these kinds of innovations occur. Are there other examples we can find from modern times or ancient times? The next section explores these questions.
But, before we move on I want to examine one more point on this lamb narrative, that to me, is the most fundamental issue. If Jesus is meant to be
THE PERFECT LAMB OF GOD! The Messiah who would sacrifice His life for the sins of the whole world.
then how are we to understand that analogy?
How are we to understand this “sacrifice”? Why is Jesus so frequently referred to as “The Lamb”? Why does Jesus need to sacrifice his human life19 to somehow, in some way, offset or pay for or atone for the sins of the world. How does that work? What is the mechanism by which Jesus dying horribly enables salvation? Salvation from what? What would be the state of the world if this had not occurred (no human Jesus, no crucifixion)? What was the state of the world in say 10 BCE?
To gain this understanding, we must study exactly how Jesus is analogized with Second Temple Period animal sacrificial practices in Judaism and how those practices fit within the broader context of animal sacrifice in the the ancient world.
Regev (2019) provides an exhaustive discussion of how early Christians understood and related to the Temple and elements of the sacrificial cult that operated there until the Romans destroyed it in 70 CE20. For brevity I will focus on Regev’s analysis of how Paul analogizes Jesus as:
Historical Context – Israel and Contemporaneous Cultures**
The development of a coherent group of people known as Israel in the Southern Levant almost certainly occurred after 1350 BCE and before 1200 BCE. The first mention of Israel as a coherent people group for which data exists is around 1207 BCE on the Merneptah Stele, a large inscription on stone of Egyptian origin that describes Merneptah’s conquest of various peoples in the Levant including Israel (J. Wright 2023). The specific language of the Stele indicates Israel was not yet a nation or kingdom, but it’s certain that a coherent people group called Israel were known in the southern Levant around 1207. It is also almost certain that no such group existed at large scale around 1350 BCE based on references to places and names from the Amarna Letters21 that should have included Israel and its prominent figures if such a people were extant at the time (J. Wright 2023).22
Israelite sacrificial practices evolved over centuries before reaching the exact form practiced around the time Jesus was likely born, but all of their elements (altar, temple, sacrificial system) are “rooted in the pagan cultures of the ancient Near East” (Haran 1978). The most obvious and directly correlated source is the Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian cultures in Mesopotamia that originate as early as the 4th millennium BCE and formally end in 539 BCE at the hands of the Persians. This period entirely encompasses the development of Israel as a people and Kingdom.
The Mesopotamian gods Marduk, Sarpanitum, Nabu, Nanay, and others among the pantheon each required their own specific daily diet of animal sacrifice (bulls, sheep, birds, fish) along with fruits, plants, grains, and beer (Scurlock 2002). Babylonians “fed” their gods twice a day every day and while the presentation and disposition of these offering was different than the Israelite practice23, “Like their ancient Mesopotamian counterparts, Israelite holocaust offerings were imagined as divine meals, presented twice daily at dawn and dusk, with extra animals offered weekly on the Sabbath, monthly at the new moon, and annually on days set aside as festivals.” (Scurlock 2006). The Mesopotamian sacrificial cult included sacrifices for different purposes including “covenant” sacrifices used to establish a contractual style relationship with a god (usually followed by daily feeding), “occasional” sacrifices for specific favors or requests, “divination” sacrifices to discern truth, and “treaty” sacrifices to ensure the sanctity of an oath (Scurlock 2006).
Sacrifices to יהוה (Yahweh)24 in ancient Israel were also conceptualized as food; the authors of the Bible refer to sacrificial items as God’s “food” (Leviticus 3:11, 21:21-22, Numbers 28:2), and to the altar as “The Lord’s Table” (see Ezekiel 41:22, 44:16, Malachi 1:7). Like the Mesopotamian gods, יהוה also required feeding twice a day – a diet of 2 lambs (one in the morning and one in the evening) with flour, oil, grain, and wine (see Exodus 29:38–42 and Numbers 28:1–8). There were also different categories of sacrifice – the guilt or sin offerings, vow offerings, and the covenant offering (the Passover). The Passover sacrifice only occurred once a year and maintained the contractual relationship between God and Israel established during the Exodus.
Hittite, Eyptian, Greco-Roman sacrificial practices were similar. M. Smith (1952) notes that “The similarities of the sacrificial cult of Uruk25 to that described in the P material of the OT26 are clear. Even of later times, when the Jews were self-consciously insisting on their difference from the heathen, Lieberman27 can remark, ‘There was a general pattern in ancient world of temples and sacrifices … which the Jews shared’”. In Greece and Rome it was the “general custom to burn the whole victim (ὁλοκαυτεῖν) upon the altars of the gods, and the same was in some cases also observed in later times (Xenoph. Anab. VII.8 §5), and more especially in sacrifices to the gods of the lower world, and such as were offered to atone for some crime that had been committed (Apollon. Rhod. III.1030, 1209)” (Schmitz 1875). Greek practices varied by city-state but generally the animals had to be “healthy, beautiful and uninjured” (Schmitz 1875).
But the Passover sacrifice was a bit particular and its association with Christianity is interesting. Let’s revisit.
The Passover was an annual reminder of the Exodus when, in the story, יהוה (Yahweh) killed every first born Egyptian from the Pharaoh to the slaves to the animals (Exodus 11:4-5). To avoid יהוה (Yahweh’s) death, the Israelites had to kill a lamb and smear its blood on the doorposts so that יהוה (Yahweh) would know to “pass over” that house. The ritual by the first Century was particular. Families would offer lambs or kids, slaughter them, the preists would and catch the blood in little bowls and sprinkle it on the altar in the Temple. Fatty portions of the animal were reserved for יהוה (Yahweh) and burned on the altar [And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the Lord’s. (Leviticus 3:16)]. Everyone had to be ritually clean to participate.
So what do we make of all this? A few particular observations are important
Like most studies, this study presents tangential topics that are relevant to the discussion above, and that I think are critical context for understanding this narrative and the phenomenon of inventing or embellishing for a variety of motivating factors (all of which are routine facets of human nature).
The discussion above illustrates that the lamb symbology narrative introduced at the beginning is a modern fiction that originated in the 19th Century, was further embellished in 2012, and is now firmly entrenched in modern Christian mythology (it’s even in The Chosen movie series). But the process of inventing narrative and/or embellishing extant narratives over time is not at all unusual in modern times or throughout the history of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition28. The subsections below illustrate a few examples. While each of these really demands its own version of this document, the constraints of time and energy limit these discussions to cursory introductions29.
Modern tales of miracle and prophecy and revealed secrets abound in the modern age. The sections below illustrate a few examples of demonstrable nonsense:
In Dalton, GA, a man named Jerry Pearce “fell down on the floor for 45 minutes in a kind of catatonic state that he describes as being ‘out in the Spirit.’” during a prayer session shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017 (R. Graham 2020). A few days later his Bible allegedly started exuding oil. First just a bit, then gallons, then hundreds of gallons. The oil apparently possessed magical powers. A reporter (R. Graham 2020) who attended one of the weekly events where the oil was distributed described
A slight white man said he was heading to China soon and wanted to bring the oil with him. He alluded to the possibility that the oil could cure the coronavirus: “I look forward to bringing back a good report!” There were stories about the oil healing arthritis and dissolving tumors. Others said their vials of oil had spontaneously refilled. One woman said she had given it to a friend who traveled to North Korea and slathered three rocks there with oil, including one representing North Korea and one representing the United States. “Right after that was when Trump met with Kim Jong-un,” she said. The crowd murmured in awe.
Really? My mother possesses three vials of this oil, given to her by friends after a car accident. I look at them when I’m visiting sometimes but haven’t noticed them refilling themselves.
A reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press covering the story was eventually directed to employees at the local Tractor Supply who visually identified Jerry as regularly buying gallons of mineral oil. Two independent Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscope (FTIR) profiles of the oil developed in two different departments at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga “indicate a petroleum derived product, particularly mineral oil.” (Massey 2020) – see the actual lab report embedded in the news article. Pearce initially denied buying mineral oil and stated that the Tractor Supply employees were lying, but after the Times reporting was published, Flowing Oil Ministries (the group organizing events related to the oil) revealed that the Bible had recently stopped producing oil. Pearce then admitted to buying oil just that last time stating (Massey 2020):
“I was going to pour that oil on the Bible when the Bible quit producing oil,” Pearce said. “And the Lord checked my spirit on it.”
Of course.
See Ron Wyatt for a litany of nonsense. The short version is that he claimed to have found artifacts like (Jackson n.d.):
- Noah’s Home and a Flood-inscription at that site
- Fences from Noah’s farm
- Anchor Stones from Noah’s Ark
- Laminated Deck Timber from the Ark
- Noah’s Altar
- Tombs with Tombstones of Noah and his wife
- The precise location of the Red Sea Crossing
- Wheels from Egyptian Chariots involved in the pursuit of the Israelites from Egypt [for a detailed discussion see Bible Archeology Report.]
- The Book of the Law written by Moses on Animal Skins
- Gold from the Golden Calf fashioned by Aaron
- The Ark of the Covenant
- Tables of the Ten Commandments
- The Tabernacle’s Table of the Showbread
- Goliath’s Sword,
- Jesus’ Tomb and the Stone Seal of the Tomb,
- A sampling of Christ’s Dried Blood, proving the doctrine of the Virgin Birth by means of a “chromosome count,” etc.
He never produced such artifacts or provided evidence to archaeologists or biologists. If you visit Israel and go to the Garden Tomb Association they may provide you with this statement: